Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control method for a fuel filling system.
Related Art
Fuel cell vehicles travel by supplying air and hydrogen to the fuel cell, and driving an electric motor using the electric power thereby generated. In recent years, progress has been made in the practical implementation of fuel cell vehicles employing such fuel cells as the energy source for generating motive power. Hydrogen is required to generate electric power by fuel cells. In recent years, vehicles have become mainstream that store a sufficient amount of hydrogen in advance in a high-pressure tank or a hydrogen tank equipped with a storage alloy, and use the hydrogen inside of the tank to travel. In concert with this, vigorous research has progressed also in the technology designated as so-called communicative filling for quickly filling the required amount of hydrogen into the tank.
Communicative filling is technology that sends information related to a hydrogen tank to a station as a data signal using some kind of communication means from the vehicle side, and performs filling control based on the data signal received at the station. Sensors that detect temperature and/or pressure of the hydrogen gas inside the hydrogen tank are provided to the hydrogen tank. From the vehicle side, data signals including information related to the temperature and/or pressure of the hydrogen tank (hereinafter, this information related to the temperature, pressure, etc. of the hydrogen tank is collectively referred to as tank state information) based on the outputs of these sensors are sent to the station side. The station side fills hydrogen based on the acquired tank state information, in an appropriate mode according to the state of the hydrogen tank at this time.
Patent Document 1 describes technology for determining abnormalities such as in various sensors of the hydrogen tank used in the above such communicative filling. With the invention of Patent Document 1, hydrogen gas is filled at a predetermined constant flow rate from starting filling until a predetermined time elapses. With this invention, the temperature inside the hydrogen take after initial filling is predicted based on the flow rate, temperature, etc. of hydrogen gas released from the station to the vehicle at initial filling, this predicted value and an actual detected value of the temperature sensor after initial filling are compared, and in the case of these greatly diverging, it is determined that an abnormality has arisen in the temperature sensor, etc., and measures are taken such as a reduction in filling flow rate, interruption, and notification of the abnormality.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2011-122657